The growing movement to make spirituality part of education

As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, the American people are deeply divided and their democratic republic is seriously troubled. If the nation is to find constructive ways to address the growing crisis, there is an urgent need to awaken a new sense of shared values and common purpose. As John Dewey, the philosopher and educator, reminded his fellow citizens in 1939 when democracy was under attack abroad, democracy is first and foremost a great ethical ideal and way of life. Faith in this ideal and wholehearted commitment to the way of being and working together it inspires, what may be called spiritual democracy, is the only sure foundation of a thriving political and social democracy.

America’s schools have a vital role to play in helping the nation respond to this moral and spiritual challenge. In this regard, a growing number of psychologists, teachers, school administrators and social activists are calling for a transformation of the schools that involves embracing education of the whole child — mind, body, heart and spirit. There is a special concern for spiritual development, the awakening of a sense of belonging to something greater than the self, and formation of a caring, intelligent, compassionate way of being.

This movement is part of the search for strategies to address the widespread mental health crisis among children and adolescents today. The movement’s leaders also understand that spirituality in education is essential if our schools are to prepare young people to become the engaged citizens and visionary leaders America needs. Rachael Kessler, for example, articulates concisely the interconnection between democracy, education and spirituality in “The Soul of Education”: “If we are educating for wholeness, for citizenship, and leadership in a democracy, spiritual development belongs in schools.”

Some who question promotion of spirituality in education are understandably concerned that supporting this initiative will entangle the public schools in contentious debates and legal battles over the separation of church and state and religion in the schools. However, even though spirituality is often interrelated with religion, spirituality and religion are not identical. Human beings are born with a natural capacity for spiritual development quite apart from any religion.

In addition, basic spiritual aspirations and widely shared values such as wonder, awe, the yearning to learn and grow, the search for meaning and purpose, the love of beauty in nature and art, reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude, self-discipline, nonviolence, empathy, tolerance, and love of neighbor can be nurtured both within and apart from religion. There are many ways secular schools can support a young person’s inborn spiritual potential and spiritual democracy, a relational spirituality involving universal human values, without promoting or opposing institutional religion.

There should be no conflict between nurturing the spiritual development of young people and maintaining high academic standards. Mounting evidence shows that when schools support the blossoming of a young person’s spirit, they also help students succeed academically and better prepare them for a productive and rewarding life. The goal is the full integration of academic learning with emotional, social, moral and spiritual development, recognizing that each young person is a unique individual with special strengths and gifts and that each school will have its distinctive way to advance the goal.

The original American dream involves the vision of a new world in which individuals are free to pursue their own diverse aspirations within a social environment that cultivates intelligent, responsible citizens who respect the freedom, equal dignity and fundamental rights of others, advancing the never-ending task of constructing “a more perfect Union.” Each generation is faced with the task of renewing faith in the dream, rectifying past injustice, and constructing a fresh, more inclusive vision of the common good for the new age. The environmental crisis has added an ecological dimension to the evolving social vision. In the 21st century, it should be central to the mission of the nation’s schools to keep the original dream and its spirit alive, and toward that end to educate the whole person, heart and spirit as well as mind and body.

Regarding the urgent need in this time of crisis for both institutional reform and cultural transformation, the pre-K-12 schools are an especially critical part of American democracy’s essential infrastructure. There is no better place to start the work of creating a culture of commitment to American constitutional democracy, to one another, to the greater community of life and future generations. Childhood and adolescence are uniquely formative periods in the human life cycle, and it is hard to imagine how the nation can hope to reinvent American democracy for this century without a transformation of schools that involves promoting education of the whole child and spiritual democracy. Moreover, achieving major change in America will take time, and preparing oncoming generations through the schools to carry this work forward is essential.

Charging schools with supporting the moral and spiritual development of the nation’s youth is not a new idea. It was widely held in the Colonial era and 19th century that a stable social order requires morality and morality requires the support of a religious faith in God. Communities looked to the schools as well as to families and institutional religion to tend the moral and spiritual foundations of society. Many children were taught to read by studying the Bible. Beginning in the 1830s, state-supported “common schools” (public schools) were established by local governments with the understanding that they would ensure young people acquire the knowledge, values and skills to be good citizens. These schools were designed to inspire commitment to a Protestant Christian vision of basic moral and spiritual values that its proponents argued was nonsectarian.

However, with the ever-growing religious pluralism of American society, the increasing secularization of society, the spread of moral relativism, and vocal demands that schools respect constitutional provisions regarding the separation of church and state, it proved ever more difficult to develop and maintain a broad consensus on how public schools should support the spiritual and moral development of young people. Fierce debates and even violent conflicts have erupted over this issue. Nevertheless, the idea that the nation’s schools should promote ethical values and character development has persisted.

While teaching at the University of Chicago in the 1890s, John Dewey was among the first educational reformers to create a laboratory school designed to generate the scientific understanding needed to guide a transformation of the K-12 schools with the goal of educating the whole child and advancing progressive social change. He was very concerned with the formation of a young person’s basic attitudes and moral values. However, he endeavored to find ways of addressing this challenge without involving organized religion, which he believed had come to divide rather than unite Americans. He envisioned schools becoming miniature communities unified by commitment to the democratic spirit and guided by the science-based art of forming in youths “fundamental dispositions, intellectual and moral, toward nature and fellow man.”

Dewey was the most prominent leader of the progressive education movement in the early decades of the 20th century, but there were multiple innovative leaders, and the movement influenced the practices in public schools as well as independent schools. However, as the nation emerged from World War II, the movement became fractured and lost its way. The scientific studies, creative experiments and impassioned debates inspired by the movement remain an important influence in the ongoing evolution of educational reform in America, but progressive education ceased to be the banner under which reformers mobilized. Reflecting the influence of progressive education, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1947 calls for the education of the whole child with an emphasis on core democratic values. Article 26 states: “Education should be directed to the full development of the human personality and strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

By the 1960s and ‘70s, the vast majority of U.S. public schools had been led to abandon a concern to nurture students’ spiritual and moral formation. In 1947, the Supreme Court made clear that the First Amendment prohibition against restricting the free exercise of religion or adopting laws that lead to an establishment of religion applies to state and local governments and to public schools, where no tax dollars may be used to support religious activities or institutions. In the early 1960s, the Supreme Court ruled that any form of school-sponsored prayer and religious instruction, including devotional Bible readings, in public schools violated the First Amendment. The court’s charge to public schools is to provide a “secular education” that maintains a “strict and lofty neutrality as to religion.” Many educators have understood these rulings to support the misguided notion that education of the heart, whatever form it takes, does not belong in public school education.

Over the past two decades, the most significant national efforts to reform the schools have focused largely on the curriculum, especially on reading, writing and math, and on the use of standardized tests to measure the progress of students, teachers and schools. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, the Common Core State Standards issued in 2010, and the Every Student Succeeds Act adopted in 2015 were designed to reverse the poor performance of U.S. students on national and international tests, but for the most part these initiatives have failed to achieve their goals. In addition, an intense focus on tests and test prepping has tended to narrow the focus of teaching and learning.

This state of affairs, however, is not the whole story regarding the schools and spiritual and moral development over the past four decades. Many independent schools, some religious and some secular, have remained committed to supporting and nurturing the moral and spiritual life of their students. In addition, concerns over the unraveling of the moral fabric of American culture and the many problems with which young people struggle today, including mental health issues, overexposure to social media and underachievement in academic work, have led to renewed efforts to find acceptable secular ways to reform public school education and nurture moral and spiritual development.

In the 1980s, John Miller and Ron Miller launched the “holistic education” movement in the U.S. and Canada. “Holistic education,” explains John Miller, “is about educating the whole person — body, mind and spirit — within the context of an interconnected world.” Spiritual development is a central concern. Even though the term “holistic education” is relatively new, asserts Miller, the theory and practice are not. He cites the educational practices of Indigenous peoples and the great spiritual teachers of the Axial Age, including Confucius, Socrates and Plato, and more recent educational reformers such as Rousseau, Tolstoy, the American Transcendentalists and Maria Montessori as educators who understood the vital importance of a holistic approach.

In the United States, almost all the major professional educational organizations have endorsed a focus on the whole child, even if the implementation of the goal remains unrealized. These organizations include the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Middle School Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Among those educators and activists supportive of holistic education are the many advocates for the practice of mindfulness in schools. In recent decades, hundreds of public and charter schools across the country have adopted mindfulness-based programs for students and teachers. The central focus of these programs is a meditation practice that comes from Buddhism, but after having been the object of much scientific research, mindfulness-based programs are promoted as a science-based technique that reduces stress, supports mental health, and nurtures development of universal values like compassion and loving-kindness. The many significant benefits its supporters associate with mindfulness are suggested in the title of former Rep. Tim Ryan’s book promoting the practice: “A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit.”

Over the past 25 years, the promotion of social and emotional learning has had a wide influence. The movement has been remarkably successful arguing that in addition to academic learning, social and emotional learning instills in young people knowledge, skills and attitudes that are fundamental to their overall development, enhance their capacity for academic learning, and greatly strengthen their ability to feel and show empathy, build rewarding relationships and work cooperatively with others. Some leaders of the social and emotional learning movement have argued that the next step should be to support spirituality in education.

Beginning with the founding of iCivics by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 2009, a bipartisan movement has formed to renew and rebuild civic education and the teaching of American history. iCivics spearheads the movement in collaboration with CivXNow, a coalition of over 130 organizations. The leaders of this initiative have released a statement on “Spirituality and the Common Good” that affirms that at the heart of the American experiment are “spiritual ideals,” and it calls for an education that “nurtures not only the minds but also the hearts and spirits of young people.” iCivics teaching materials are being used today by millions of students. Transmitting to them an understanding and appreciation of the way of being and working together associated with spiritual democracy should be a fundamental goal of their civic education.

Lisa Miller, a professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, has for several decades been conducting pathbreaking research in the field of psychology and spirituality. In 2015, she published “The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving,” making a compelling argument in support of education for the whole child in pre-K-12 schools. A principal leader of the spirituality in education movement, she emphasizes the many protective benefits of spiritual development in young people and the vital importance of building spiritually supportive school cultures.

Her research provides hard evidence that children are born as spiritual beings as well as social and moral beings. They are equipped at birth with the deep inner core that reflect their genetic makeup, but the cultural environment and socialization have a major influence on how these inborn capacities are developed. Her research demonstrates that when the deep inner core of children and adolescents is supported and nurtured, they are more likely to do well academically and much less likely than others to be overcome by anxiety and depression and to be at risk for alcoholism, drug abuse, other harmful behaviors and suicide. In general, they are more likely to be resilient, thrive and develop rewarding relationships and meaningful careers.

Miller writes that there are now hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles that show “inborn spirituality as foundational to mental health and wellness, particularly as it develops in the first two decades. … Spiritual development is for our species a biological and psychological imperative at birth.” “The data suggests,” she also explains, “that it is much easier and more likely for adults to be spiritual if that sense is fostered during childhood and adolescence.”

These findings are a wake-up call for America regarding what the well-being of the nation’s young people requires of parents, religious institutions and schools and what schools must do to help create the spiritually aware, morally responsible citizens and leaders the nation so desperately needs in civil society, business, the military, politics and government.

Steven C. Rockefeller is professor emeritus of religion and a former dean at Middlebury College, and was a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for 33 years.

Adapted from “Spiritual Democracy and Our Schools: Renewing the American Spirit with Education for the Whole Child,” by Steven C. Rockefeller. Copyright ? 2022 by Steven C. Rockefeller. Published with permission from ClearView Publishing.

This story appears in the September2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.